09 May 2006

finals are coming up, and consequently, i should not be knitting and watching so much x files. but i did buy myself a little knitting knobby the other day, and have been making blue i-cord (leftover t-rex yarn) and have been pondering what to do with it. a friend suggested i make a series of flying spaghetti monsters to reflect the stages of picasso's art (blue, rose, and cubist). we shall see, we shall see.

once i find my size fours again, there will soon be another pattern for you all to feast your eyes upon...inspired by the mental obsessions of brady higa.

...aaaaaaand i wrote that back in mayish. and now its julyish. so it's outdated, and the robot (the aforementioned pattern that incorporates my size 4 dpns) is still unfinished, but coming along nicely.

in other news, there's this neat shrug entitled 'Bobblicious' on Knitty, and i've started that in ravenclaw colors. the hogwarts set shall be complete before the summer's out. there's an abandoned rexlace belt still on the needles, which i suppose i'll finish one of these days.

i've decided that perhaps a way to make myself blog more often and even regularly, is to go with this trend of using 'shuffle' on iTunes and listing the first ten songs that come up. here's this week's listening. i'll put them in song (album) - artist order for clarity.

Poke in the yarn tail at the closed end of the body. Then, where the head is angled, where it changes direction, find a small hole on either side of the head. Realize that this is problematic and the designer was too lazy to go back and remedy the pattern to get rid of these, and decide you’d better take up your yarn needle and sew them shut. Do this; it won’t take but a few moments. If you’ve elected to use buttons for eyes, now wouold be the perfect time for attaching them. Then you can stuff the body with your luscious polyfill! Mmmm…

Now you don’t want your pterodactyl to turn out like Icarus, so attaching the wings securely is key. Fortunately, the centering part is easy, with that line of purl stitches down the center. So cut yourself a nice hank of yarn and sew down the edge of that purled column, and across the bottom, up the other side, and back to where you started. Tie a knot and poke in those ends.

Stuff the legs, and attach them in a logical fashion, using the tail from the cast-on row if possible. Make sure they don’t stick out at too much of an angle, that would look a bit silly.

Working with an arm, thread the long tail down through the hand (those rows of 2 sts), and bring the edges of the arm together, seaming it into a skinny little tube. If you’ve still got a good deal more of the tail left, use it to attach the base of the arm to the crease where the body and wings meet. Then carefully, sew the arm to the wing, so that the arm is positioned relatively horizontally a little more than half of the arm’s length, and then bent upwards, so that the little hand bit sticks out above the wing at the top. Like always, poke in the end when you’re done. (Obviously, you’d want to do this for both arms, which you totally understood, but I’d thought I’d point it out to ward off any self-proclaimed masters of technicality.)

Aaaaaaaaaaheadlessbirdaaaaaaaaa!

Now comes the interesting part. That poky head thing. More seaming! So take that lengthy tail from the bind-off row and employ your yarn needle to sew the edges together, lightly stuffing. You want a little bit of polyfill, probably, but I feel like mine is too puffy. Not that overstuffing is a huge problem. You’re still making a pterodactyl, which will still qualify as equally amazing in most people’s minds regardless of the heftiness of that head plate. In the end you want it folded so that the seam you just made runs along the center of the bottom side, with the piece being relatively flat. One end should appear more rounded and shorter than the other. That’s good. That goes in the front, so the other (pointier) side is closer to the wings. Using your stitching skills (honed in the rest of the Jurassic birdmaking process) sew this to the head, using the logical positioning skills that all of us have somewhere deep within us. (Careful, it is easy to sew it on a bit crooked. Then it turns out like mine, which is sort of looking off to one side. Which is cool, if that’s what you’re going for. But it’s not too hard.) Here comes the predictable refrain: poke in those ends!

Get out your craft glue and stick on those humorous googly eyes. Probably two is good enough. One on either side of the head is a good rule. Sort of close to the poky head plate. But by all means, don’t let me stifle your creativity. If you want a Cyclops pterodactyl, or seven eyes, all on the left side, go for it.

Show all of your friends/acquaintances, and send me pictures of your creation. Especially if it’s eye setup is unconventional.